Touring With the Taylors

By

John Jurgensen

Updated Feb. 18, 2011 12:01 a.m. ET

Ben Taylor is quick to credit nepotism for what could be the biggest break of his music career. Next week the 34-year-old singer joins his father, folk icon James Taylor, for their first tour together. Dad gets top billing (Ben is "a very special guest"), yet his songs will likely comprise half the total set.

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Ben Taylor, pictured here, is finally getting a chance to tour with father James.
Redferns/Getty Images

"He's being ridiculously generous," says the younger Taylor.

Though Ben has produced recordings for his famous mother, Carly Simon, and toured with her, collaborations with his father have been more sporadic.

Recently Ben joined in one of his father's familiar pretour rituals. In the barn of James's Lenox, Mass., home, the two men pored over cards cut from old manila envelopes. On each paper was written a song title—30 from James's repertoire, 30 from Ben's. They arranged the songs in different combinations on a table, trying to find a flow in mood and tempo for the concerts. With a camera phone they snapped pictures of the various set lists for further comparison and editing.

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The pair at the U.S. Open tennis tournament in 2005.
Reuters

The turbulent marriage of Ben's parents ended in 1983. He recalls harmonizing with his parents and older sister Sally, also a musician. But in adulthood he first tried to distance himself from music with acting and other interests, only to succumb to "the family business."

Over the course of five releases, he has tested folk conventions, recently weaving crisp beats behind hip-hop-influenced vocals. On mellower acoustic fare, such as the 2005 album "Another Run Around the Sun," the warm tone of his voice resembles his father's. Ben hears a difference: "His voice is cleaner than mine; mine's a little dirtier." Their guitar-playing is contrasting, too. "My songs will be more Neil Young-y because my chord changes are not as sophisticated as my father's," he says.

Ben, who lives on Martha's Vineyard off the Massachusetts mainland, had lobbied to open some of last summer's James Taylor-Carole King concerts. But his father demurred, Ben says—such a high-profile reunion act wouldn't have left much oxygen for a father-son component.

James Taylor has been on the road regularly since the 1970s. Ben says he recalls his father abandoning only one tour, "when some kid skated over his left hand and severed the tendon between the thumb and index finger" at a Manhattan skating rink.

Starting in Tulsa, Okla., on Feb. 26, Ben will be onboard for more than a month of his father's longer run through May. Even as he bears down for a week of rehearsals in Tulsa with James and his band, Ben has a family agenda, too.

He says, "I'm just excited because my father and I have the opportunity to hang out for a month. We'll be on the same bus and in the same hotels. We're taking our mountain bikes and maybe we'll get some rides in."

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